Marx outside the Bank of England, 2009.

John Locke was not only a man of ideas, but a man of action: after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, he was involved in multiple official projects. One of these was the Bank of England,which was founded in 1694. Locke was an early supporter and investor in the Bank, and even helped to organize it. The Bank was, like Locke, devoted to an economy based on labor, and noton land. It thus helped to transform Britain from an agricultural to a manufacturing economy, inline with Locke’s theories. While Britain industrialized, with the help of the Bank, the nation also became increasingly unequal. This led to tensions and labor struggle, which are still going on today. Here we see a demonstration in front of the contemporary Bank of England. Protesters wave the flag of another CC author: Karl Marx. Locke and Marx actually agreed that the purpose of the political state was to protect private property. They simply disagreed over whether or not this was valuable, or sustainable: for Marx, the state itself must be overcome in pursuit of a classless society.